Organization: Univ of British Columbia

York Univ joins TRIUMF as associate member

York Univ is the latest post-secondary institution to join TRIUMF as an associate member. The membership will give York-based researchers access to large-scale research facilities and expertise in the physical and life sciences. In addition to nuclear physics, TRIUMF’s science program includes particle physics, molecular and materials science and nuclear medicine. The facility is owned…

Genome researchers tackle mountain pine beetle

Genome British Columbia and Genome Alberta are providing $4 million for an initial two-year study into the mountain pine beetle, the fungal pathogen it carries and pine trees. Led by Dr Joerg Bohlmann (Univ of British Columbia) and Dr Janice Cooke (Univ of Alberta), the project is expected to expand after the first phase with…

Aquinox completes US$14.5 million financing

Vancouver-based Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc has completed a US$14.5-million series ‘A’ financing to further develop targeted small molecules therapeutics based on its proprietary SH2-containing inosital phosphatase biochemical enzyme. The enzyme regulates the PI3K pathway for regulating cell growth and survival and immune cell regulation. Aquinox is a spin-off from the Univ of British Columbia and BC…

Dolby Labs buys BrightSide Technologies

Vancouver’s BrightSide Technologies Inc (formerly Sunnybrook Technologies) is being acquired by Dolby Laboratories Inc, San Francisco, for US$28 million in cash. The company will remain in Vancouver as part of Dolby Canada. The Univ of British Columbia spin-off is a private, development-stage company focused on high dynamic range imaging technology that dramatically improves the contrast…

Genome BC’s CSO receives $1.1M in research funding

Dr Don Riddle has received $1.1 million from two granting agencies to further his research on aging. Riddle, Genome BC‘s chief scientific officer, was awarded $905,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study the development of c.elegans, a free-living nematode. He also received $213,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to…

CFI announces first awards under LOF program

The Canada Foundation for Innovation has announced the recipients of its first competition under the Leaders Opportunity Fund (LOF), which replaced the New Opportunities and Career Awards funds. Designed to attract and retain top-flight researchers, the competition awarded $19.7 million to 145 investigators at 35 institutions. A further $3.9 million was awarded under the affiliated…

FPTT signs on as Flintbox channel partner

Federal Partners in Technology Transfer (FPTT) has signed on as a channel partner to Flintbox, a national network for licensing and reporting on early-stage research. Launched in 2003 as a spin-off from the Univ of British Columbia (UBC), the online application has focused primarily on universities, providing training and learning materials for institutions that sign…

NSERC releases fourth edition of business directory

Science and Engineering Research Canada (NSERC) has released the 2005 edition of its Research Means Business directory, listing 141 companies built upon NSERC-funded research. Ten universities account for 98 of those firms, led by the Univ of British Columbia (17), the Univ of Toronto (14) and the Univ of Waterloo (14). The directory was previously…

U of W places fourth in computing machinery contest

A student team from the Univ of Waterloo (U of W) won a gold medal after placing fourth in the world finals of the 29th annual International Collegiate Programming contest, held by the Association for Computing Machinery. The U of W team easily outpaced its North American rivals. The next closest North American teams from…

UBC team sequences and annotates bacterial genome

An international research team led by three microbiologists from the Univ of British Columbia (UBC) has completed and annotated the largest bacterial genome in history. It is the first bacterial genome to be entirely sequenced and annotated in Canada. The three researchers — Drs Lindsay Eltis, William Mohn and Julian Davies — conducted their research…